Monday, June 18, 2007

Attack of the Killer Ducks, or how I spent my weekend

It was a lovely weekend.
It started off perfectly when I came home to a package from Texas.
I’ll show pictures of that later, but it did set the right tone.
And so did the beautiful sunshine!
The farmer’s market started on Sunday, which also happened to be Father’s Day.
We bought some lovely strawberries – sorry, none to show – they are all being baked into strawberry bread!
Perhaps I can get a picture of that for you.
If we were all better players we would have played goodminton, but since we’re not, we played badminton on Sunday.
Ha ha.
We bought a net and some rackets at a sporting goods store a few weeks ago and I think that game is so much more fun that the $250 Wii SN2 had to have for his birthday. At least I get to have more fun, because I’m just not a videogame kind of person.
I can serve like a champ, but it’s trying to get the returns that I kind of suck at.
Well honestly, there’s nothing scarier than a shuttlecock speeding towards your face.
Am I wrong?
Then yesterday, before the game of good/badminton, DN2 and I took a walk and we were attacked by ducks.
Seriously.
We went to a park over by the canal and sat down on a bench to look at the ducks in the pond. We spent about five minutes watching them and talking about the ducklings and knowing that we were observing the wildlife laws and not feeding them. This was helped by the fact that we had no food to give anyway.
After we’d been sitting there for a few minutes a duck came up out of the pond, quacking and heading straight towards us.
He was followed by another.
And another.
And another!
And they kept coming!
They had us surrounded – and they continued to quack in our general direction.
DN2 started to get scared, and rightly so, and she climbed up onto the bench.
There were ducks behind us, ducks in front of us, and ducks off to the side, eyeballing my floral skirt, my pudgy, white bread-looking toes, and the ham hocks I call calves.
(Apparently the ducks can't read the signs about not feeding the wildlife.)
I started to get a bit nervous as one shifty-eyed duck began to quack louder and louder.
DN2 and I both stood up and moved to the right of the bench and the crowd of ducks moved along with us, slowly edging in closer and closer.
It was at that point that we decided to cut and run.
Seriously.
And the ducks followed us!!!
It was actually quite a scary experience.
DN2 said it was too bad I didn’t have my camera.
I don’t know, one of the ducks might have snatched it out of my hand and destroyed the evidence.
From now on I’ll be looking at the ducks from a safer distance….like the inside of my car.
And if I do go by them again, I won't wear clothing that resembles their food and my toes will be covered.
How was your weekend?

3 comments:

Angelika said...

Those are some scare ducks indeed. I had an experience like this when I was little, but wiht geese and eversince then, they are not on my list of favorite things/people/animals.
My weekend? Shopping at Victoria's Secret :P

Unknown said...

They are scary! A lake nearby my place in Minneapolis would be full of angry ducks who would freak out if you got within a few feet of their babies. This was a very popular lake with walkers and joggers, so the ducks kept busy all day!

My mother-in-law was here, which has been fine. (But I'm ready for her to go). And I studied and knitted.

Unknown said...

The ducks aren't the only beings unable to read the signs--people feed them all the time, which is why they (the ducks, not the people) don't migrate. Ergo, the ducks are under the rational impression that humans = forthcoming breadcrumbs.